The subject of the article is the text-mentative and its functioning in the Russian literature of the XX-XXI centuries. The concept of ‘mentative’ (which appeared in linguistics since the beginning of the XXI century by analogy with ‘narrative’) means a text with a mental reference, dialogically responding to the word and thought of the other. In linguistics, there is a typology of communicative strategies of the mentative in relation to the speech of the other. There are 8 strategies, they are equal logically, but unequal in dialogical and, consequently, heuristic relations. In Russian fiction, the text-mentative was established in the middle of the XIX century. That was due to the beginning of the stage of convergence of the artistic and non-artistic word in Russian literary evolution. The novel “War and Peace” by L. Tolstoy, containing multiple mentative fragments and entire chapters, became a clear sign of the mentative appearance in fiction. The stage of convergence of the artistic and non-artistic word continued until the end of the XX century, and all this time the specific weight and importance of the mentative in Russian fiction were steadily increasing. The article shows functioning of the mentative in the ideologically and artistically most important works of Russian literature of the mid – late XX century. These are novels by B. Pasternak “Doctor Zhivago”, A. Bitov “Pushkin’s House”, V. Pelevin “Generation ‘P’”, A. Chudakov “The Mist Falls on the Old Steps”, texts by A. Solzhenitsyn, V. Rasputin, V. Makanin. In all these works, the mentative allows us to formulate the key thoughts for the self-consciousness of the XX century Russian literature: morality, truth, the meaning of life and the danger of consumerism. In the XXI century, in the works by M. Kucherskaya, E. Chizhova, E. Vodolazkin, the mentative also occupies a large place, appearing in ideologically important fragments of works. As a result of the above, it is concluded that the role of the mentative in Russian literature of the XX century was steadily increasing. The authors of the article suppose that we witness starting of the stage of mental thematization of writing in the Russian literary evolution in the XXI century.
